spinacountry
Spin

Explore the world by continent

All 250 countries and territories, sorted into 6 world regions. Pick a continent to see its full country list with flags and capitals, or spin a random country from that region only.

Africa

The youngest population on Earth and the most countries of any region, from Mediterranean coast to Cape Town.

59 countries · 1.5B people

+47 more

Americas

Two joined continents plus the Caribbean, running from the high Arctic to within 1,000 km of Antarctica.

56 countries · 1.0B people

+44 more

Asia

Nearly three in five people alive, spread from the Bosphorus to the Bering Strait.

50 countries · 4.8B people

+38 more

Europe

The densest cluster of borders anywhere, with more landlocked states than any other region.

53 countries · 744M people

+41 more

Oceania

One continent and thousands of Pacific islands, almost none of which share a land border.

27 countries · 47M people

+15 more

Antarctic

Antarctica itself plus four sub-Antarctic island groups. No permanent population, no UN members.

5 countries · 0M people

How many continents are there, really

Seven is the answer most English-speaking schools give: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America and South America. It is also not the only answer. Much of Latin America teaches six, with the Americas as one continent. Some European curricula teach six a different way, treating Eurasia as a single landmass. A few models get down to four. None of these is wrong, because a continent is a naming convention agreed by people, not a boundary you can measure with instruments.

The awkward cases are all the same case. Europe and Asia sit on one continuous plate with no water between them, so the dividing line at the Urals is a decision rather than a discovery. Panama joins the two Americas. Egypt has territory on two continents, as does Turkey, as does Russia. Any list that claims perfect tidiness is hiding something.

This site uses 6 regions: Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe, Oceania, Antarctic. That is the standard statistical grouping, which merges North and South America and puts Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic islands together. The reason is practical. It covers all 250 entries with nothing missing and nothing counted twice, which is what a browsable list needs. The seven-continent model leaves you arguing about where to file Cyprus, and does not tell you what to do with the Falkland Islands.

Between them these 6 regions hold 193 UN member states and 57 territories and dependencies, 8.14bn people, and 150,146,848km² of recorded land. The area total sits slightly above the figure usually given for Earth’s land surface, mostly because Antarctica is carried at a round 14,000,000 km² of ice sheet rather than a surveyed coastline. For the complete alphabetical version of the same data, use the A to Z list of all countries.

The 6 regions side by side

Ranked by number of entries. The share column is each region’s slice of the 8.14bn people in the dataset, and it is the column that surprises people most.

RegionEntriesUNPeopleShareLand km²Landlocked
Africa59541.52bn18.6%30,318,41716
Americas56351.04bn12.8%42,077,9222
Europe5344744.3m9.1%23,084,94315
Asia50464.79bn58.9%32,138,14112
Oceania271446.7m0.6%8,515,3130
Antarctic501,330<0.1%14,012,1110

Two rows in that table need a warning label. First, the Americas top the area column at 42,077,922km² only because North and South America are counted as one region. Split them the way a school atlas does and Asia is comfortably the largest single continent. Second, Europe’s 23,084,943 km² includes the whole of Russia, all 17,098,242km², rather than stopping at the Ural Mountains. Europe on its own is usually given as about 10 million km², so treat that cell as “Europe plus Russia” and it makes sense.

The share column carries the real headline. Asia holds 58.9% of the people in this dataset, more than the other 5 regions put together, on 32,138,141 km². Oceania holds 0.6% across 27 entries. The Antarctic region rounds to nothing at all, because its recorded population is a few hundred researchers.

A short guide to each region

What each region actually contains, and the thing about it that most often catches people out.

Africa

59 entries · 54 UN members · 1.52bn people

Africa has more countries than any other region. 54 of its 59 entries are sovereign states and only 5 are territories, because decolonisation there is essentially complete. It is also the hardest region to learn, and the reason is arithmetic rather than difficulty: 54 sovereign states is more than most syllabuses cover, so gaps go unnoticed for years.

Nigeria is the most populous at 232,679,478 people, while Algeria is the largest by area at 2,381,741 km². Note that those are two different countries, which is unusual: in most regions the biggest by land is also near the top by population. 16 African entries are landlocked, more than any other region, and that single fact explains a great deal about trade routes and rail projects across the continent.

The Americas

56 entries · 35 UN members · 1.04bn people

Two continents in one row, plus the Caribbean, which is where the numbers get strange. 56 entries but only 35 UN members, a gap of 21, the widest of any region. Almost all of that gap is islands: British, French, Dutch, American and Danish territories scattered through the Caribbean and the North Atlantic. 29 entries here share no land border with anybody.

Canada is the largest by land at 9,984,670 km² and United States the most populous at 340,110,988. Only 2 entries in the whole region are landlocked, which is what you would expect of a long, narrow double continent where almost everywhere is within reach of an ocean.

Asia

50 entries · 46 UN members · 4.79bn people

Fewer entries than Africa or the Americas, and 58.9% of the world’s people. India alone has 1,450,935,791 residents, more than Africa and Europe combined. The scale runs the other way too: Macau is the smallest entry in the region at 30 km².

China is the largest by land at 9,706,961 km², and with 16 land neighbours it borders more countries than any other entry in the dataset. Asia also holds 12landlocked entries, including the Central Asian states, Nepal and Bhutan. Worth knowing before you revise: Russia is filed under Europe here, not Asia, so Asia’s land total of 32,138,141 km² excludes Siberia entirely.

Europe

53 entries · 44 UN members · 744.3m people

Europe packs 53 entries into very little room. Set Russia aside and the remaining 5,986,701 km² is less land than Oceania has, shared between 52 entries. That density is why Europe has more land borders per square kilometre than anywhere else and 15 landlocked entries, second only to Africa. One of them, Liechtenstein, is doubly landlocked: every neighbour is landlocked too, a distinction it shares with only Uzbekistan.

Russia is both the largest by area, at 17,098,242 km², and the most populous, at 143,533,851 people, because this dataset does not split it at the Urals. At the other extreme sits Vatican City on 0.44 km², the smallest entry anywhere in the list. Europe is where the microstates cluster, and they are the ones people forget in a quiz.

Oceania

27 entries · 14 UN members · 46.7m people

The smallest region by both entry count and population: 27 entries and 46.7m people, or 0.6% of the world. Australia accounts for the clear majority of that, with 27,196,812 residents on 7,692,024 km².

26 of the 27 entries share no land border with any other country, the highest proportion anywhere, and not one is landlocked. Distances are the thing to grasp: some of these nations are spread across ocean territory larger than Western Europe while holding a few thousand people on a handful of atolls. Tokelau is the smallest at 12 km².

The Antarctic region

5 entries · 0 UN members · no permanent population

The odd row out. 5 entries, none of them a UN member and none with a permanent civilian population. Antarctica itself is carried at 14,000,000 km², a round figure for the ice sheet rather than a surveyed land area, and the rest are sub-Antarctic island groups administered from Norway, France or the United Kingdom.

No country owns Antarctica. Seven states maintain territorial claims that the Antarctic Treaty holds in suspension, and the continent is run by international agreement for scientific use. The population figures in the dataset reflect rotating research staff, which is why the smallest entry here records just 30 people.

Six numbers worth remembering

If you retain nothing else from this page, these are the figures that make the rest of world geography easier to hold in your head.

59 entries in Africa

More than any other region, of which 54 are UN member states. It is the count most people underestimate.

59% of people live in Asia

4.79bn of the world's 8.14bn, on land that is not the largest region in the table.

42,077,922 km² in the Americas

The biggest area total here, but only because North and South America share one row. Split them and Asia leads.

45 landlocked entries

Africa has 16 and Europe 15. Oceania and the Antarctic region have none at all.

26 of 27 Pacific entries are isolated

Almost every entry in Oceania has no land border with anybody, which is why sea distance matters more than adjacency there.

0 UN members in the Antarctic

Its 5 entries have no permanent civilian population and no sovereignty. The continent is governed by treaty.

Learn the regions properly

Reading a table once does not stick. These pages make you recall the same data instead of recognising it.

All Countries A–Z

The same 250 entries in one searchable alphabetical list.

Spin the Globe

One click, one random country, with its flag and key facts.

Random Country Generator

Draw countries filtered to a single continent, with no repeats.

Capital City Quiz

Multiple-choice drilling on capitals, region by region.

Guess the Flag

Flag recognition, which is where regional knowledge shows up fastest.

Landlocked Countries

All 45 entries with no coastline, grouped by region.

Find a Flag

Search flags by colour and pattern when a name will not come to you.

Random Letter Generator

Draw a letter, then name a country in each region that starts with it.

Geography Notes

Longer pieces on borders, capitals and the odd corners of the map.

Frequently asked questions

How many continents are there?

Most English-language schools teach seven: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia or Oceania, Europe, North America and South America. Other traditions teach six, five or four, usually by merging the Americas or treating Eurasia as one landmass. There is no scientific test that settles it, because a continent is a naming convention rather than a measurable object.

Why does this site use 6 regions instead of 7 continents?

The underlying dataset follows the standard statistical grouping used by the UN, which merges North and South America into "the Americas" and files Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic islands under "Antarctic". That gives 6 regions covering all 250 entries with no country left out and none counted twice, which matters more for a browsable list than matching a classroom poster.

Which continent has the most countries?

Africa, with 59 entries in this list, of which 54 are UN member states. Americas is second on 56 entries but only 35 UN members, because the Caribbean is dense with territories rather than sovereign states.

Which continent has the most people?

Asia, and not narrowly. Its 4.79bn residents are about 59% of everyone alive, more than every other region combined. Africa is second with 1.52bn, and Americas third with 1.04bn.

Which continent is the largest by land area?

In this dataset the Americas come out on top at 42,077,922 km², because North and South America are counted together. Asia is second at 32,138,141 km². If you split the Americas the way a classroom map does, Asia is the largest single continent by a clear margin.

Why is Europe's land area so large in your table?

Because Russia is filed under Europe in full rather than split at the Urals, all 17,098,242 km² of it. That pushes Europe's regional total to 23,084,943 km², well above the roughly 10 million km² usually quoted for Europe alone. The same choice adds Russia's whole population to Europe's 744.3m.

Is Antarctica a continent, and why does it have countries listed?

Antarctica is a continent but not a country, and nobody owns it. The 5 entries in the Antarctic region are Antarctica itself and four sub-Antarctic island groups administered from elsewhere. None is a UN member and none has a permanent civilian population, only rotating research staff.

Is Australia a continent or a country?

Both, which is why the region is usually called Oceania instead. Australia is the country and the continental landmass; Oceania is the wider region of 27 entries that also takes in New Zealand, Melanesia, Micronesia and Polynesia. Australia alone holds 27.2m of the region's 46.7m people.

Which continent has the most landlocked countries?

Africa leads with 16. Oceania and the Antarctic region have none, for obvious reasons. Across all 6 regions there are 45 landlocked entries in total.

Can I spin a random country from just one continent?

Yes. Every continent page has its own spin button that draws only from that region's list, and the main random country generator has a continent filter too. It is the fastest way to revise one region without the other five getting in the way.

Where do the country counts come from?

Each region page counts rows in the same dataset that powers the A–Z list, so the totals on this page and that one always agree. The figures include 57 entries without a UN seat alongside the 193 member states — mostly dependencies and overseas territories, plus a few observer or partly recognised states such as Vatican City and Kosovo — which is why regional counts run higher than the ones in most textbooks.

Which region is the easiest to learn first?

Oceania has the fewest sovereign states of any inhabited region: 14 UN members among 27 entries. South America is the easier real answer for most people, because twelve sovereign states with distinct shapes and capitals stick quickly. Africa and the Caribbean are the two that take real work.

A note on the groupings

Region assignments follow the standard statistical classification, which is why Russia sits in Europe, Turkey and Cyprus sit in Asia, Mexico sits in the Americas rather than North America specifically, and Hawaii is inside the United States rather than in Oceania. Those are conventions, not verdicts, and a different source may file them differently. 25 subregions sit underneath the 6 headline regions, so a country page will tell you both. If a figure here looks wrong, let me know and it gets checked. There is more on how the site is put together on the about page.